heartsickness
by fuckin-rodent
Summary: Not that any of it matters. It shouldn't. She's his friend. Buttercup is his best friend. (greens; oneshot/drabble.)


**RATED M **because there are some pretty heavy themes mentioned (though not entirely explored) that i know warrant more than a T-rating; there is discussion of suicide towards the end and partially during a flashback involving mitch (brief,) allusions to a manipulative relationship without thoroughly confronting the issue, and butch having some very unhealthy habits/behaviors that could potentially upset some people (no, nothing that compromises his bond with buttercup in a way that i'd personally deem endangering.) if any of this is potentially upsetting, i'd advise skipping this one bois.

also butch jerks off at one point in the shower (starts at the line 'He really shouldn't be thinking about her when he's doing…_this_.' and can be skipped 'til the next line-break.)

and swearing. duh.

**WORD COUNT** (excluding author's note): 16, 801

true to character, not beta'd. leave me alone idc im tired.

this is an ambiguously-ended greens drabble/oneshot; obviously there is a lot of pining butch throughout. there's no real plot: a lot of themes are looked at but not elaborated or explored, i'm not sure if i'm going to do a sequel to this or a take from buttercup's perspective or an epilogue. it depends what i'm vibing for, or if there's anybody who actually wants it ️ (even then im not sure lol).

* * *

New Year's Eve went like a blur, and so did the hangover right after. There was a flash – the calendar flipping from 2019 to 2020 like a verdict. A sentence. Maybe he could follow everybody else; hope for a better year this time 'round. Cross his fingers and hope. Make wishes. Set resolutions – to be better, to be good, to _do_ good. To be the guy he wants to be.

Except, what kind of guy does he want to be? Is there an answer to that? He can imagine the resolutions: quit smoking, quit drinking, quit gambling, quit quit quit, and _end it_. But Butch doesn't want to do any of those things. Smoking's soothing, drinking's dulling, gambling's gutsy and a gross waste of money and exactly what people expect of highschool dropouts. So quitting isn't an option.

Taking up a new hobby would be cool. Maybe he could try drawing – except that's Brick's thing. Maybe he could expand his musical talent – except that's Boomer's thing. Butch's thing is…being loud and violent. Also being derogatory. But gardening could be fun; have his own little _spice garden_ on the windowsill, or a neat lil' collection of herbs in the kitchen. Could work on that 'green thumb' schtick. Green is Butch's thing too. However, it's not exactly like Butch is great at taking care of his things. If he can't look out for himself, who's he to declare a sudden skill in tending to greenery?

All he remembers is fireworks and that damned calendar, somebody against his side and then against his lips, and it wasn't the girl he wanted or the colors he liked (all gold and blue and red fireworks, no green, nothing.) The decade flipped in tandem with his stomach. Heart cinched up with too many strings pulled taut. The girl he'd kissed, she'd tasted like vodka shots and cigarettes. Butch probably tasted something similar. An acrid, drunk-acquired taste. Something only the inebriated lonely would understand.

The bitterness still lingers. How he'd stood on the balcony and watched the stars shatter, the moon burst, the sky alight with plumes of smoke and colored explosives. The telltale _hiss_ of rockets shuttling through the air. Every beat of the bass; through the concrete, through his rubber soles, through his bones. He'd gripped his bottle so hard it splintered.

Green shards.

Glass shards.

Green and glass. Her eyes had looked like that – the girl he'd _really_ wanted to kiss at midnight. On the million-pixel, high definition, flatscreen that'd been displaying the town center's celebration of the new year. Buttercup. Blossom. Bubbles. But most importantly, Buttercup. All the LED decorations (can you imagine the electricity bill?) and the swarming masses around the central fountain; screaming, yelling, calling, some garbled kind of celebratory chant that boiled down to _appease us!_ The girls had chirped their celebrations in a painful rehearsal, smiling with white teeth and wide eyes. Knowing that every camera is on them. Knowing that every moment is being aired live.

Buttercup looked…lackluster. Like she didn't want to be there. Like she had better places to be – maybe at a party, maybe the same one Butch was at, and maybe she had a boy in mind she'd wanted to kiss at midnight…maybe she'd wanted to be there to kiss _him_ – but let's not get too ahead of ourselves! She was probably thinking of _Mitch_, or something. Whatever she'd been thinking about, she didn't look happy.

Butch still thinks about it.

Looks at his long-since healed palm and wonders what it would've been like to kiss the Toughest Fighter. Then again, he's been thinking about that for a long time, now. Since…forever ago, now. Would she be harsh? Tender? There are two contrasting hypotheses that come to mind: fast and abrasive, just like she is, her hand fisted in his shirt and blood from his lip getting caught in her teeth; she'd pull back with red crawling up her neck, heaving like she'd ran a mile flat – or soft, gentle, hesitant and chaste because she's still afraid of love after what happened when she was a kid, uncertainty in how her plump mouth moves against his, and when she pulls back it's with her eyes still closed, only to flutter open delicately -

"God, why are you so goddamn depressing, man?" Boomer grunts.

Butch blinks, looking up from the sink. "Huh?" Way to sound like a fucking loser. Not that Boomer wasn't already _acutely_ aware of his incompetence.

Boomer (freshly showered and bushy-tailed,) swivels to him with a scowl, "It's _January THIRD_, dude! 'Turn of the decade' ring a bell? Bunch of folks going out, all excited, whoop-dee-doo! New year –" Punctuated by a pair of, quite frankly, insulting jazz hands – "So what the fuck crawled up your ass and died?"

Butch blinks again. He blinks and stares for what feels like a minute, before scrunching up his face in derision, "Oh, gee, this is as exciting as the entire millennium that passed back in 'ninety-nine!" His face drops. "Why the fuck would I give a shit?"

"So fucking depressing," Boomer whines. As Butch turns away, there's a suspicious silence. Then, with the subtly of a bull in a china shop, the blond pries: "Is this because you couldn't make out with Buttercup at the party?"

Again, Butch blinks. It seems to be his best way to process things today. He bats his eyelashes to the sink basin, watching his coffee residue swill down the drain. When the affronted feeling finally sets in, he can only bring himself to curl a lip. "Psht – _no_ –" A scoff – "I wasn't even thinking of Buttercup at the party! I was _drunk_, and, if I do say so myself, reeled myself a _pretty_ _nice_ catch!"

Boomer outright laughs at him for that one. "Sure," He chortles, "A _nice catch_. You called her 'sunshine' the entire night."

Butch chokes this time. He turns to Boomer, who still toys around in the fridge as if there's definitely something in there he'll eat, and feels his lip curl again. Incredulous, he huffs, "You're fucking with me."

"Au contraire, mon frère," The younger boy avers. He pulls an egg from the shelf, analyzing it severely before gently returning it. Butch feels his stomach begin to churn. Just to hammer in the nail, Boomer gives him a stern look. Blue eyes cutting into him. Funnily enough, just like glass, in the mid-morning sunlight. "We both know there's only one girl you call 'sunshine', man."

Silence dominates the kitchenette.

"Fuck." Butch brings his hands to his face. "Fuuuuck, are you fucking –" He cuts himself off with a sigh, dragging his hands down until he digs his fingernails into his neck. His stomach is in knots, twists, lunging deep before throwing itself up. A rollercoaster derailed. A ship on tempestuous waters. Whatever other metaphors apply to the solidified _resignation _and _contempt_ broiling in his gut. He feels Boomer's consoling hand pat his shoulder.

Peeling his eyes open to the popcorned ceiling, Butch rattles out a strained groan. Boomer pats firmer, blond curls bobbing in Butch's peripheral, "At least…at least the girl you were with didn't seem to realize?" The dubiousness in the younger boy's tone is enough to send Butch back into another throe of despair. He manages to rein it in.

With this tragedy fresh on his palate, he absconds to his bedroom. Boomer watches him go, sighing and shaking his head. He returns to the fridge, prodding around for breakfast.

* * *

"Two number threes and a large sprite," Buttercup orders, "Annnnd, uh, a number four with a salad and a large cola." God, she knows his order by heart. It shouldn't make him feel as warm as it does. Then again, a double cheeseburger with a side-salad and cola probably isn't the most unique thing on the menu. He watches the receipt shuffle out of the printer. Rung up and paid, the pair depart for one of the booths in the back.

"Can't wait for next year," Buttercup sighs. She slumps into her side of the booth with a languid sort of grace – a grace very little give her credit for, but Butch sees it, watches the silk under the sinew – and thumps her head onto the table top.

Butch arches an eyebrow and readies to tell her _it's literally the first week of January_, but pauses as she whips her head back up. "I know! I know, we haven't even finished this year yet, but like –" She curls her hand into a fist – "I dunno." Whatever sudden energy had coursed through her cuts short. She smacks her head into the table again. "It just…doesn't feel like this is gonna be a good year, man, y'know?"

He makes a sound of acknowledgement. To an extent, he sympathizes. This first week has been draining; sudden celebrations and too many people out expressing their excitement in general Townsville fashion (too optimistic for their own good.) Being surrounded by so many busy bodies is never fun. Or maybe it's something to with the weight of senior year on her shoulders. Christmas break ends soon. There's a large chance that she's just like any other student, fearing the uncertainty that lies after her school years. Butch doesn't voice any of this. There's no point.

If he even whispers some kind of insecurity, her hackles would raise like a snake coiling for a strike. No matter how _hot_ that may be, it's not a result he wants. A defensive Buttercup makes for an offensive Butch, and combined leads to an awful spat neither of them want – somebody always says something wrong, picking at each other's armor, a knife wedged somewhere delicate and fatal, or a pair of venomous teeth sunken into tender flesh. Then it becomes a question of who's the victim and who's the villain: the snake, or the boy that tried to mess with it?

"I feel you," He mildly agrees. Setting an elbow on the table, Butch pulls his gaze to the window. Picture-perfect skies stare emptily at him. Pale blue and cloudless, with a weak sun. The snow's been long gone; it doesn't snow for long down here, if at all. Everybody got their 'white Christmas', what more do they want? He glances back at his companion, "Still feels like last year, honestly."

Butch is starting to recognize he's talking for the sake of talking.

The girl across from him finally brings her face from the table. Her cheek sticks to the tacky faux-wood. She grimaces. It's just a simple movement; crossing her arms on the surface, chin nestled behind them, peering at him with half-mast eyes. It's just a movement. Nothing special. Butch feels stupidly endeared all the same. He smiles. It feels raw on his face, something he needs to mar with less innocent intent. Before he can, she smiles back.

'Schmaltzy' is the word that comes to mind. She's got eyes made for summer, narrowing with the upturn of her pink mouth, cheeks still rosy from the biting chill that comes with soaring through town.

Buttercup's attractive. He's always known this. Subjectively, she's got looks, she's hot (especially when she's angry,) she's got the body of a war goddess, and her voice is like honey over hot coals. But then there's – _this_. And schmaltzy is the only way he can describe it.

When all the sharp edges buffer out. Whatever this small moment is. Slitted eyes and a gentle curve of a smile; she's pretty. It's never a thought that bodes well for him, but it's the truth. It's a look for Bubbles, or maybe even Blossom, to be this sweet-looking and soft, and yet…Buttercup pulls it off so well. So saccharine. So clement. So _demure_.

So fucking out of character.

Or maybe Butch is making it bigger than it actually is.

Buttercup sits up as their order number is called. Her hand brushes his shoulder as she passes, taking strides to grab their tray from the bay. His shoulder tingles. How much more pathetic can this get?

"Thanks sunshine," Slips from his mouth. Such a simple thing – a thank you, a nickname – as she hands over his food. Their fingers brush in the exchange. Buttercup doesn't pull away like she used to; another simple thing that makes a warmth seep deep in his chest. Fucking _disgusting_.

"It's whatever, big guy," Buttercup brushes off, stabbing her straw into her drink. Sipping noisily, she pins him from beneath her eyelashes, "'Sides, I kinda owe you."

The confusion must be evident on his face, as she sets down her large cup in order to prop her chin up in her palm. The action brings her closer. Butch can't help but lean forward, leaning on his forearms. He arches a brow. She takes a breath – odd that she has to steel herself for this, the thing she apparently owes him for (he'd know if she owed him anything. He's good at keeping track of those kinds of things. Call him…frugal.) Buttercup mutters, "For before…New Year's Eve."

Ah, that.

"Nah," He discards, "Jus'…being a friend, sunshine." That fucking nickname. New Year's. Fuck. "Somebody's gotta be there for you, right?" Apparently, this isn't the best thing to say, because Buttercup stares morosely at her cup. Despondent, for this fleeting second. A camera shutter goes off in his head. (Downcast eyes, sloped shoulders, lip between her teeth – )

God, the day before New Year's Eve was an entirely different clusterfuck. So many things that could've gone different – well, maybe not, with Mitch and Buttercup's relationship having been a vessel on the rocks for a while now – or things that just didn't need to happen. Butch isn't sure which is worse – that Mitch dumped her in front of everybody, or that Buttercup was hurt so badly she actually started crying.

He wishes the event was as fuzzy as the party he went to. It isn't. Quite the opposite, in fact: crystal clear. Just a regular day, sorta. December 30th, Monday, 2019. Evening time. Butch, Buttercup, Mitch, and the boys. None of them bothered to go to any of the mainstream parties, deciding to hang 'round Butch's place because Boomer wasn't home and the only time Brick left his room was to go to the bathroom or get a snack. That's all well and good. Chips, champagne (for Butch, anyway; Buttercup was reluctant for anybody else to drink underage on 'her watch'. He'd joked around with her. Shoulder to shoulder. Near enough to…to kiss her, with the sound of the twins bickering over what game they play on the console in the background. How sappy would that be?)

Nothing had really been going off course. It was like any other time they come to Butch's place. A little more chaotic because there's no parents to tell them off, a little louder, a little more boisterous. Not that anybody's ever complained about that.

And Mitch was sort of being a cunt.

Not exactly new, but more frequent in the tail-end of the relationship. Butch still marvels at how long it lasted. Never known Buttercup to be as patient as she tried to be with ol' mop-head. Even when the heartache was painted on her face. The argument had started like this: "Why can't you just hold my goddamn hand like everybody else does?"

She didn't have an immediate answer. She was trying, it was clear – the train racing on the tracks in her head as she tried to understand just what the question was, what the answer was meant to be. Not fast enough. In retrospect, Mitch never had been good at giving people the time of day. "Can't even _kiss_ you, without you runnin' off like a spooked horse!"

The kid was standing by then. Throwing his hands 'round, all red in the face, words coming out like the champagne Butch had opened at the beginning of the evening ("Gotta celebrate 'least a little, right?" He'd grinned. The mood had been significantly lighter, then. Buttercup had laughed.)

He punctuated his next accusation with a sharp gesture of his hand – to them, to Butch and Buttercup, lounging on the couch – "I don't get to even _hug_ you half the time, but then _Butch gets to do __**that?!**_" 'That' being putting an arm around her shoulders. Mitch's voice raised. Hurt spewing from his mouth before Buttercup could ease the faucet, one thing after another.

All of it about what Mitch _can't_ do.

All of it about what Butch _can_ do.

Ruffling her hair. Nudging her elbow. Bumping hips. Arms around shoulders. Hands on waists. Things friends do. Laughing at inside jokes. Linking pinky fingers and swinging their joined hands in the distance between. Sharing looks. Sitting close. Spending all their time together. Knowing each other like the back of their hands. Brushing her cheek with a crooked finger, tilting her chin up, smiling in, "This fucking _gross-ass _way that _FRIENDS_ DON'T look at each other like!" Knowing secrets. Sharing burdens. Flying off away from the group and doing, "God knows what!"

The list goes on.

Each like a dart on Buttercup's heart. Every time she opened her mouth, he trampled right over her. Only Mitch could've done that. Only _Mitch_ was allowed to have that audacity, to be able to have her heart in his hand and _crush it crush it crush it_, just because she had the gall to have a best friend that was no longer him.

Silence dominated the room. Tension more suffocating than anything fathomable, like the heaviness of a nightmare, unable to escape. Choking. Even the twins had fallen quiet.

Center stage: Mitch. The rest of them seemed to be only background cast, as he stood with stern shoulders, chest heaving, the television's opaque glow framing his silhouette. Buttercup had seemed so small. Shrinking against his glare, eyes wide and glistening and heartbroken – all the things Butch had never wanted to see. Not on her. Not ever.

When it was clear Buttercup's throat was too tight to speak, Butch broke the stillness. His next words a sledgehammer to the glass, "You've got some fuckin' nerve to start screaming in an apartment building that isn't yours, mop-head. I can't _wait_ for the noise complaints. Fuckin' asshole."

He then stood, champagne in hand, and sauntered to center stage.

Thinking back, it had felt so planned. So rehearsed. Like in theater.

Mitch has always been a shrimpy kinda guy. Maybe that's why Buttercup was with him – she found it cute, maybe, that her boyfriend was 5"6 and pint-size to her 6"1. But to Butch's 6"6, Mitch was all but a cockroach under his boot. In that moment, he certainly seemed repulsive enough. Butch remembers the derision that made him hot all over, white-burning, like flaming magnesium between a pair of tongs.

Short guys have always had a lot of nerve.

Butch cuts Mitch off when he tries to open his mouth, "Either get the fuck out or apologize, Mitch." Voice steady. Always steady. Brick taught him how to keep it steady, and he is nothing if not a fucking professional actor at the best of times. Mitch's face got redder. Hazel eyes flitting back and forth. Butch. Buttercup. Butch. Buttercup. Butch. Buttercup. Butch –

_Swing. Punch. _

_Caught._

When he caught Mitch's fist in his hand, it was like plucking a mosquito out of the air. He was so close to crushing it. _Crushing it._ Like Mitch had just done to – to his best friend. Just curl his fist a little tighter, hear the bones begin to pop, the telltale cracking and the way the blood would drain from the kid's face…it'd be like music to his ears.

Time slowed. The way eyes widened and breaths caught. Something dark and restless licking at his insides with valiant vitriol. Mitch's visage morphing into a deer trapped in the headlights. Fuck, Butch was ready to _run him over_. Back up and run over him again. And again. And again. Ready to crush his hand. Bone by fucking bone. Pulverize. Obliterate. Trounce, until Mitch learns this lesson in pulpy flesh and blood, repenting for this – this _crime_ – in each of his days spent in hospital, spent in physiotherapy. Then Butch would repeat it all over again. Until he was confident that Mitch would never misstep again. Or ever.

He almost did it.

Muscles flexing from his shoulder to the tips of his fingers, ready to carry out this punishment, breath steady and heart a burning hole in his chest and that dark-something over his mind like a filmy gauze. So fucking ready. The fear settling into each line of Mitch's face was _delicious_. Mouth open, stuttering, the barest register of tugging in this slow-motion haze Butch had found himself in.

Buttercup hit 'play' when her hand curled around his bicep. Everything thrown back into motion. Harry's startled holler as he jumps up from his claimed armchair, reaching for Mitch and knocking him 'round the back of his head. Merely chastising. Not anything _close _to the hell Butch was going to unleash. Lloyd sucking in a startled breath at the display, Floyd running off somewhere from the stage.

The most important thing: Buttercup. Slowly, like his body wasn't his own, Butch had turned to look at her. She'd stared back at him firmly. Through tears. Through the quivering of her lower lip. Through the bowstring-tautness of her throat. He was ensnared.

Distantly, there was a hammering sound. Floyd's voice at Brick's bedroom door, "_Hey Brick, man, you gotta come get your bro under control here, 'less you want blood on the carpet or somethin' –_ " Followed by the whine of a door on its hinges.

Mitch's hand was still in Butch's unmoving vice. His own trap. Yelling rose up from the boys. Caught between, '_Mitch, what the fuck?!_' And Harry – probably the only rational thought in the room – '_Butch, easy, just…let him go, okay?_' Harry had always been Butch's favorite.

Buttercup's hand tightened on his bicep. Grounding, almost pulling the cotton from his head. Ringing replaced with panic. Her look said it all. A simple command: let him go. Let him go. Let him go. Let him go. Like a foreign language. Wrong syntax. Does not compute. Butch gripped tighter on reflex.

Mitch let out a startled yell. _Pop!_

That's Brick's cue. Enter stage left.

"Butch, put him down." An order as crisp as Buttercup's single look, and it _still _didn't quite make sense. So he released his right hand. The one holding the champagne. The near-empty bottle thudded dully on the carpet.

Mitch was struggling harder. Wrenching his hand – as null as prying from the jaws of death – and whilst Butch didn't _tighten_ his fist, he didn't lessen his hold. The tension increased rapidly when Butch defiantly met Brick's eyes. Clashing. The heat not cooling inside him, this _injustice_ staring all of them in the face, and none of them doing anything about it! This _monstrosity_ of a fucking kid in front of him, easily caught because that's just how fucking weak he is, dragging the girl he – the girl who – the love of his fucking life through a minefield just because he's JEALOUS OF WHAT HE CAN'T HAVE!

_IT'S NOT FAIR._

"Butch," Buttercup finally rasped. Her eyes gleamed in the lowlight of the television, a tremble to her hand that only he could feel; in tandem with the angry twitch juddering down from his trapezius. Nobody seemed to notice how _sad_ she looked in that instant. Caged shoulders and that frown marring her like another battle scar, another day in the life, like her heart broke all the damn time, like this was nothing new. Nobody seemed to give a shit. Nobody except Butch.

He let go.

His prey tore away, ready to spring back into the forest, away from the big bad wolf. Dissatisfied, his chest grew tight; heart beating a smidge faster. He growled from the back of his throat. Buttercup's nails dug into his skin. Maybe some other day, Butch would've boasted about how her hand didn't curl all the way around his bicep. Instead, the fact made him lower his hand fully to his side. _She's so small right now. And nobody gives a shit._

A little girl clinging to him. Dewy wide eyes and grit teeth; stubbornly teetering on a precipice. Soft hair. Rough palm. Little Red Riding Hood shying behind the Big Bad Wolf, as he stares down the hunter. _This wasn't how the story was meant to go_. Little Red is meant to run away with the hunter, right? Happily ever after. Safe. Loved. Cherished. The wolf gets shot and Little Red goes home. When did the wolf become safer than the hunter?

"Oh my god," Mitch breathed, staring in disbelief. He was cowering away in similar fashion, cradling his hand to his chest. His second knuckle looked swollen. Nothing too bad. Nothing close to what Butch knows he deserved. "Oh my fucking god!" Accusatory this time, eyebrows furrowing like he's about to shout again, but Brick's clapping a hand over his mouth and shoving him back onto the couch.

What Brick said is lost in Butch's memory. Something about noise complaints. About scenes. About ruining his night, and everybody else's night (not that he gives a shit,) and riling Butch up enough that Brick had to get involved – it was pushing it. Testing Brick's patience. And Brick was not, and will never be, patient.

He remembers it coming down to an ultimatum: Mitch leaves, or Mitch gets over himself. The answer should've been simple. It should've been to apologize, to make it up to his girlfriend, to stay and enjoy the rest of the evening. To do his job as a boyfriend and make Buttercup feel better. To wipe tears tenderly from her face – talk to her in an even tone, love her gently but fiercely, appreciate her, tell her that he's an idiot and he wants to make it up to her, and really, he shouldn't have been jealous, because he knows that Buttercup loves him wholeheartedly and would never – would never…

Would _never_ kiss Butch.

Or anybody else, for that matter! Just Mitch. Because they're together. A couple. A cute couple, who love each other dearly. Childhood sweethearts. Smitten. Each other's equal. Even though it's a little rocky, they can fix it, that's what he should be saying, as they sit cuddled on the loveseat adjacent to the coffee table, blanket layered over them like a warm balm. Like protection.

But that's not what Mitch did.

Mitch went off script. "You're doing it, even now!" He gritted out, eyes narrowing at where Butch and Buttercup joined. "I can't believe you." He shook his head, and this time, Butch ran out of things to say.

However, Buttercup has always been better at improv. Her hand slipped from Butch's still-twitching arm, voice cracking around her defense, "I can't believe you're getting jealous over my best friend!" The tears threaten to fall. Her eyes glossed, pupils the size of pinpricks in her hurt, "I've told you, time and _fucking_ time again, I'm not _trying_ to be distant! I'm –" Her eyes darted around the room, at their audience; her cheeks coloring with shame, lowering to a warble, "I'm…scared. You know that."

Once again, Mitch doesn't follow his lines. Instead of compassion, of empathy, of sitting down and calming and understanding – _listening_ – he spits out pure fucking venom.

Enough so that Brick had to stride across the room and scruff Butch before a coherent thought could form. Brick's hand was poker-hot on the nape of his neck. Butch dug his heels into the floor.

"Get the fuck over it," Mitch hissed.

"I…" Buttercup stopped short. Practically slapped silent. Shock apparent, she recoiled, stumbling a step back. Even though she had never stepped forward to try and bridge the distance. Hands limp at her sides, shoulders sinking in defeat. The first tear fell.

And Butch couldn't have that.

He shook off Brick's hold (he has a feeling he was only released because, somehow, Brick understood Butch wasn't acting on violence anymore,) drawn to Buttercup as a moth to a flame. Instinctual gravitation. "Fuck you, Mitch," She retorted weakly. Her hand came to her face to frustratedly wipe away more tears. Biting her lips to hold back sounds. All the while, Butch guided her by the shoulder, pulling her from the scene, exit left stage.

It was enough 'intimacy' that Mitch spat, "We're _over_," before storming out of the apartment. Unceremonious. Completely flippant. Enough to make Butch's blood boil. Enough to make Buttercup trip up on the way to Butch's bedroom. Enough to choke the living room of life. Enough for those fragile tears to come by the dozen, hiccups slipping from her bitten-red lips, face becoming blotchy and uneven through her distress. Enough to ruin an evening.

Watching somebody cry has never been Butch's thing. It's like the sensation of wet paper. Unclear how to approach. Not one for consolation himself, it'd always been best if he simply evacuated the situation. Found somebody better to cope with.

But this is _Buttercup _he's talking about. She isn't like the actors on television. She isn't like the weaklings out in town. She's – she's a supernova, caving in on herself. She'll return brighter. Butch knew she would. She just had to collapse first. It's a heartbreaking sight, honestly. How, the second his door shut; this awful, miserable, kicked-dog kind of sound whined from her chest. A sob. Then two. A shoulder-shaking third, a chest-racking fourth, a breath-stealing fifth. All of it seared into Butch's memory. How Buttercup clung to him on the floor. Nails scrabbling at his back though his tank-top, the dampening of his chest where she pressed her face. He recalls holding her just as close. Two desperate things.

Rocking her lightly. Petting her hair. Brushing her cheek with his thumb. All the things Mitch _couldn't do_, all the things Butch _could do_ – her eyes blissfully closed as the waterworks came to a pause. Mostly because she'd cried herself to sleep.

"Hey, Butch?" That wasn't part of the script, either. He knows he fell asleep straight after he was sure she wouldn't suddenly wake up; she didn't talk to him after that.

"Butch," She says anyway. Her hand on his. Butch looks up from his fries, blinking, lost. She gives him this ghost of a smile, gesturing to his burger wrapper and untouched drink. He's torn the wrapper to shreds. "You good, big guy?" Buttercup asks.

Butch hastily drops the crumpled mess that is his lunch. "Uh –" He swallows, turns his hands palm-up to match her hands, palm-down – "Yeah. Yeah, m'fine, sunshine." The smile he offers sits crookedly on his face. Too hasty. Too shaken. Too…lost. "You done?" He nods to her empty fry-box and wrapper, drink finished. "Yeah, c'mon," Butch breathes, standing from the booth, hand out for her to – to what? Butch drops his hand.

Oddly enough, Buttercup looks almost…mournful to no longer have the option to hold his hand.

* * *

Sitting in the living room of Butch's apartment is understandably a little difficult right now. The dregs of champagne still stain the carpet: the only proof of that night having ever transpired, but the open space sits sullen like an abandoned crime scene. Butch, maybe a forensic cleaner or merely a culprit trying to hide the evidence, has done what he can without completely tearing everything up and remodeling. Bar the champagne stain. Who knew that stuff was so stubborn?

Buttercup sits stiffly. In her usual spot. Next to Butch. Knees tucked under her chin; eyes glazed over as she sees through the television. It's easy to see the night's events replay under her eyelids – old reels chugging along. Eerily nostalgic. The pain on her face has eased long since then, but Butch knows her more than he knows himself.

She's smarting internally. Still untangling _what ifs_ from _it's overs_ and trying to lick wounds she's never really considered having to tend to. And Butch can't tend to something like that. So he doesn't. That's not to say he isn't there alongside the process.

"Can we watch something else?" She groans. Her legs spring from the couch, joints popping in tandem with the flex of her ankles. "This shit's dry as fuck." Her eyes strike him venomously. Probably intentional. (Butch has never feared being bitten. Probably stupid.)

He drops the remote into her lap, "Knock yourself out, sunshine."

Vague sensations of upheaval aside, the day has gone well. His days are generally lacking given that he doesn't go to school. He may very well still be sitting and watch television, sans Buttercup, had she not chosen to ditch. The addition of his companion makes the activity skyrocket in appeal. That, and she dragged him outside to 'show him what air that doesn't smell of weed is like' (a ruse simply to buy him lunch, _again_, such a gentlelady, isn't she?)

There's a particular moment that still clings to his atlas vertebra. Specifically because her hand had been there. Firm palm different from the juvenile way Brick scruffs him, like a _bad dog_, like he's _wrong_, an act of discipline rather than caution or affection.

The instant itself was fleeting. Just a fond squeeze. Worn palm against the shorn hair of his undercut. His surroundings had shrunk to that single frame in motion: her hand like a balm for his skin. The opposite of Brick's live-coal touch. Open-palmed. Gentle. Assuaging. All nerves beyond her fingertips died. Skin and muscle and bone simply alight under the contact.

And Butch will never forget it. He knows, ruefully, that solid seize of her hand will creep into his dreams. That tender touch – anywhere, his knee, his elbow, his arm. The usual places. But the phantom sensation will have him waking in clammy sweats. Gasping, if his dreams venture deeper, pull darker desires from his subconscious – where that hand could go, _god_, just the thought!

Not that any of it matters. It shouldn't. She's his friend. Buttercup is his best friend.

She'd never do anything along that venereal train of thought, because she doesn't – won't ever… not in that way. Just like that, the train comes screeching to a halt. Sparks fly. Straining wheels on steel tracks come to him like cotton in his ears. Head swimming with the sudden change in motion. Does the phrase 'emotional whiplash' capture the scene well?

"Y'know," Buttercup starts, "You're spacing out a lot recently. What's up with that?" Butch watches the volume bar on the screen tick down from 35 to 19 (she's awful like that, not leaving it on a multiple of five,) before the sound of Buttercup limply throwing the remote onto the coffee table meets his ears. Shuffling. Her legs propped across his lap, warm line of her body against his side, her cheek on his shoulder. "You can…you can tell me, y'know that right? Whatever's botherin' you – I'm here."

Once again, he is faced with the dilemma of 'schmaltzy' being the only word to grace his mind. Cloyingly so, her words honeyed and earnest. His hand comes to rest on her shins. No hesitancy. They've been beyond that for years now. Whether Mitch liked that or not. He brushes his thumb idly, pushing a hum from the back of his throat. "I know," A smile starting to curl around his words, "But 'm fine, sunshine. Don't worry 'bout it."

It keeps her sated for a little while.

But then their snacks are gone and the television plays some other kind of run-of-the-mill slasher that neither of them pay attention to and she's warm and soft and pliant against his side and it's like they're actually a – a thing – together – outright fucking cuddling on the couch and it's like Mitch never happened never existed never had a chance and…

And Butch just about breaks when Buttercup falls asleep on his shoulder. She doesn't drool. Doesn't make faces. She's sweet like that. Innocent in sleep. Youthful, like she hasn't lost her childhood and adolescence to this godforsaken town. Soft cheeks. Parted mouth. Unfairly girlish eyelashes against freckles and her newest bruise. Like this, Butch can pretend she wants to be there. That she purposely chose _him_ to lean against before she slipped from consciousness.

His hand is moving before he recognizes it. To her hair, brushing her bangs from her face. Strands of silk spilling through his fingers. Soft and cut unevenly; she makes it work, the longest strands curling against his neck. Thinking about how long he could just…_sit here_, no other urge other than to hold her hand…it makes something flutter nervously under his skin. It's scary.

Butch calls one of her sisters to come pick Buttercup up. He doesn't trust himself. He doesn't trust her, either. Not when she's fatigued enough to simply knock out.

It's Bubbles that shows up. She's already in pajamas, sleeping mask pinning back her bedhead-curls. He has to crane his neck to look down at her. "…Did I wake you?" It's a dumb question. It slips out anyways.

The small girl gives him a bleary look, a slight pout (completely dissimilar to Buttercup's – they're triplets, but nothing alike. Nothing. Alike. It never fails to make him react in some way. Sometimes with awe. Sometimes with irritation. Often, it makes interactions with Blossom or Bubbles unpredictable; he never bothered to connect with them. At all. Why would he, if they're not Buttercup?) "It's almost midnight, Butch," The girl yawns. As if it's a suffice enough an explanation. He just blinks down at her.

And? Who gives a shit if it's almost midnight? Buttercup's only asleep now because she's been working her ass off all week, battling inner turmoil, dealing with the return to school, and – oh yeah, _being a superheroine._ Otherwise, Buttercup would still be awake. She'd be laughing with him over some video game, or hopping rooftops on night patrol with him tagging along, or…something. Not necessarily awake with him. But if she was – he knows she'd be rosy and honeyed and brazen with those serpentine eyes and wicked teeth. If only she wasn't heartbroken.

"…A'ight." He shrugs listlessly, striding back to the couch. Bubbles' hurried scampering to keep up is clammy on the wooden floor. His teeth grit together as Buttercup's form is revealed to him once more.

Vulnerable. Curled fetal, clutching the pillow where Butch had been. Her slender hands grapple with the desperation of a coiled snake, and she rolls over just the same; sinuous and fluid, in just her cut-offs and tank-top. The imprints left behind from the couch are reminiscent of scales.

The sudden feel of a small hand on his arm has him jerking away aggressively. Nobody touches him. Not anybody but Buttercup and his brothers, Harry on occasion. How small Bubbles' hand is – childlike. Hauntingly so. Her eyes are so deeply blue with it, this juvenile love for the world. She looks at him with sympathy. He hates it hates it hates it. "What." Hisses from grit teeth.

If the blonde is unsettled by his hostility, she doesn't show it. In truth, she's probably barely shaken. They've all known Buttercup to be equally as venomous at times: Bubbles is probably an expert snake-handler by now. Presumably better than Blossom (if he remembers correctly, it's Little Blue who takes to animals. Leader Girl, he recalls, only prospers in theory. Not in practice.) Instead of recoiling Bubbles just calmly retracts her hand. Her voice is sugary sweet and callow, "Do you know what 'skinny love' means, Butch?"

No, he doesn't. It's clear on his face. He doesn't really care, or ask, either, or even get a chance to. Mostly because Buttercup starts breathing shallow. Twitching. Tossing. Turning. He's by her side quicker than he can blink, crouching by her head and grasping her shoulder with enough force to shake her awake.

Her eyes shutter open like wide-blown camera lenses; air stutters from her lungs like a series of shots, each blink catching images that fleet from her mind. Butch wonders what remnants of her dreams ebb away. Is he revealed with relief? Is his face something that calms her, brings comfort, gives light to an encompassing darkness? Thinking that he could very much be the opposite makes his stomach clench tightly. He doesn't want to think about being the waking nightmare. He doesn't want to be her monster.

"Easy," He says sotto voce, marveling as Buttercup brings her hand to clutch at the one on her shoulder; quivering, only told by touch, fine tremors like the aftershocks of an earthquake. Butch softens his voice further. Feels it roll like an unfamiliar spool of velvet from the back of his throat. "You good?"

She returns to the present in increments. First her feet, ankles cracking as she stretches, and then her elbows, propping up on them whilst her spine curls with that rare grace. Buttercup offers a smile. Small. Hesitant. Teeth still grimaced in a warning of sorts, eyes wild and flaring as a long breath hisses from between those two inveigling lips. An affirmative hum tapers from her chest.

The hairs on his neck stand on end.

Sleep-soft, she hunkers up to lean back on her palms. Lithesome, each shift prominent under her shirt, through the skin-fit hold of her jeans. (_Beautiful. She's beautiful, and not his_.) Buttercup stretches, "Am now."

Bubbles is staring holes into the side of his face. It's hard to pay her any mind, really, when his heart falls into awkward palpitations as the mere morsel of a smile materializes along the seam of that fucking mouth, and then Buttercup is squeezing his neck again, and _fuck_, he might as well go belly-up now. His eyes close of their own volition to the sensation.

Before he can sink too deeply into this encroaching docility, Bubbles clears her throat. She's still trying to brand his forehead with cerulean eyes, setting to burn with a room-temp poker, but the effect is enough to send a dissonance through the warm melodies of Buttercup and Butch's shared breaths. He pulls back far too quickly. Suspiciously so. However, Bubbles seems to be the only one that noticed.

"Well, c'mon, sunshine, up an' at 'em."

Buttercup frowns down at her hand, still hovering where he had been, before yawning. She uses that same hand to rub the sleep from her eyes. Sharp, she glances between Butch and Bubbles; she arches an eyebrow. No indication that she's surprised by her sister's sudden presence. "Wh's goin' on?" She mumbles.

"We're going home," The third party helpfully explains, hand out for Buttercup to take as she slowly unfurls from her cushioned nest. Her eyes don't fully open, frown only half-formed and crumbling, so softened by sleep and warmth.

"M'kay," Butch's best friend sighs. As she stands, with Butch still knelt at her feet, a shudder runs down his spine. To crane his neck up to see her – such a submissive position only _she'd_ find him in – and her hand pulling loosely through his hair as she shuffles along after Bubbles; it feels like some great Greek statuesque retelling of a tragedy, pulled and pulling, until that gospel hand is gone from his hair altogether and he feels the full brunt of the atmosphere without her there to steady him.

Butch blinks. "G'night," Buttercup mumbles listlessly, already slipping through the doorway after her sister. The apartment door shuts with a click. He stares down at the carpet; a coldness slithers deep around the veneer of his guard and pries it out of place with the same ease as you would shucking off an old jacket. Once again, Butch finds himself repeating the same reticent reminder: _not yours not yours not yours_.

Oh, but what a life he'd lead if she was.

* * *

"So what's Mitchelson up to these days?"

Butch doesn't actually give a damn. He wants to know if the boy is wallowing – in regrets and beer and weed, in all the things that went wrong, all the things he should have said, all the things he should have done, all the boundaries he shouldn't have overstepped – or if he's fine. Butch wants to know if there's a leg or two he needs to break in order for Mitch to understand the suffering he's inflicted.

_What's it like to bring a god to her knees? _Buch wants to ask.

_Did you like it?_ He'd grasp the kid by the throat. The temptation to squeeze would be almost irresistible. _Did you feel gratified?_ Maybe Mitch will squeal like slaughtered pigs do, grappling feebly like newborn cull-meat, under Butch's unyielding grip.

_Yes!_ Mitch would wheeze, _Yes, and I don't regret a single second!_ To which Butch will wrench his wrist outward, watch Mitch's flailing contortion until he settles in this new angle. Then he'd squeeze. Not enough to kill – no, not yet – but enough for death to be a delectable desire. Mitch would cry out, or maybe he wouldn't – throat too cinched to even swallow right, and Butch would stare as the red blotched up the kid's face in some crimson caricature of his anger, that night, when he went red and saw red and his hands were red with the blood of a broken heart as he left the apartment.

_Was it worth it?_ Butch wants to ask.

_Was what worth it?_ Because Mitch is young, dumb, blind, and Butch will forever overshadow him this context. Where Mitch is clueless – how to touch her in such a way she is neither insulted or intimidated, how to approach her from behind without flaring that _kill kill kill _instinct she swears she doesn't have (he knows it like he knows his own dark sludge soul; but she is bright, brilliant, unmarred by sinister intent, a magnesium strip easily burnt, but beautiful all the same.)

_The kill_, Butch will spit, _the severing of a heart, was it worth murdering a girl to drink in the downfall of a titaness? How does her golden blood taste? Is it good? Does it sweeten your crimes?_ And maybe he'll tighten his hold just that tiniest bit, to watch Mitch's eyes bulge and the purpling seam of his mouth to be shown by that startled gasp forced from his gullet. Perhaps Mitch will make the same, final, guttural bellow that shot cattle does.

By then, Butch wouldn't hear the answer. Mitch would be limp in his hands: dead. For the better, he figures, that he doesn't and won't ever know the answers to those questions.

"I'm…half-inclined not to tell ya, pal," Harry evades wearily. The boy scratches his head, dark eyes dubious as he gives Butch the once-over he always does. "'Specially not with that chronic twitch you're sportin'." A nod to Butch's arm. Butch clamps his left hand over his right elbow, blinking down as the rivets of muscle spasms jostle him bodily. He doesn't have a retort for that.

Harry raises his brows, before splaying his cards face-down on the table between them, "'Sides, ain't gonna do you any good giving yourself neuroses over somethin' that ain't your business."

"It's plenty my business," Butch has an argument for that one: "Buttercup's my best friend. Nobody fucks with her and gets away with it." Mostly because she can handle her own, is the fact left unsaid but wholly acknowledged.

Harry rubs his knuckles against his teeth, eyebrows furrowed in benign consternation; it rubs Butch like dock leaf over nettle stings: itching and irritable and rubbed raw, until Harry can tap the new tacky layer of skin shining wet underneath. "I ain't ever heard of best friends gettin' this riled up over exes, pal."

Narrowing his eyes, Butch grits, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Ever the peacekeeper, Harry holds his hands up diplomatically. To his credit, he doesn't look the slightest bit shaken. "All I'm sayin', Butch, is…don't overstep. She ain't gonna like you any kind of way if you do that. You of all people should know." And the guy's right, obviously. Of course Butch knows. It's a game of tippy-toe he's been playing with himself for…well. Years, now, with no definite beginning. No definite end. Harry _fwips _his deck back into his hands, calloused thumb flicking over each card carefully.

"Jus' sayin', Butch."

"Yeah. I know."

Three rounds of poker (Butch winning all three times, it's easy to swindle a guy who looks too earnestly for the good in people,) two replays of basketball on the television, and a bottle of Jack Daniels shared between them, Harry bids himself adieu. The sun's low by then. But Harry's a big boy, sturdy head on brawny shoulders, he knows how to look after himself. Butch sees him off with a hand on his shoulder and a brief, "Catch you 'round, skinhead," before Harry saunters off down the hall.

Now Butch is alone with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels, a barely-there buzz behind his eyes, and his thoughts are rampant as he stares at the champagne stain in the carpet. Yet another testament to the life Butch leads. To what Butch is witness to. To the things he doesn't say and doesn't do, or vice versa.

That champagne stain is much alike to anything else in this apartment. The dent to the left of the light fixture from a game of Mario Kart gone rogue, wherein Mitch said too much and Butch didn't say enough, and the Wii remote went sailing after a deflected blow. The squeaky hinge of the bathroom door from the movie night six months ago, where Buttercup had excused herself to after Mitch hissed like hot coals and Butch missed when tossing the water, and – ever the loving boyfriend – Mitch had punched the door at her refusal to leave. The burn mark on the stove a dark and loathsome reminder of Hallows' Eve, an argument having broken out over the fact that Buttercup matched outfits with Butch instead of Mitch (a plan hatched only _after_ Mitch had announced he wasn't going to dress up that year,) and he'd threatened to burn his throat open over the hob if Buttercup continued to act like she wasn't his girlfriend.

She'd been Poison Ivy, sans the red hair, and he'd been The Riddler. Butch had laughed about her 'changing sides', and she'd socked him in the arm before they went to the party – Harry as Catwoman ("You gotta be fuckin' with me, _I_ should be Bane!") Lloyd as Bane and Floyd as Two Face. Mitch was supposed to be Joker. But he'd gotten mad over Buttercup not wanting to be his Harley Quin, so he had declared not wanting to go at all. That'd been a debacle in itself. Buttercup, viperous tongue and serpentine eyes, had said she liked the idea of Poison Ivy better; that, and she'd already got half the costume for it. That, and, "Green's my thing, man! You really want me struttin' 'round town in _red?_"

Mitch had argued that the whole point of costumes was to be pretend to be somebody else. She didn't have to care about being Buttercup, if she was impersonating a character. (Except, Mitch doesn't understand Buttercup's desire for identity, doesn't get that Buttercup grew up miserable in the background of her own life, doesn't understand the dire need to be recognized as _Buttercup_ – as who she is, the person people want her to be. Green _is_ Buttercup. Of course, Mitch didn't get it. Not like Butch did. Yet another cause for tension.)

The black burn mark was seared into the inside of Butch's eyelids for a week after.

Butch's apartment has become a forlorn museum of a struggling relationship, and everywhere he looks, all he can think of is _Mitch Mitch Mitch_ and his godawful handprints smeared on every inch of property like toddler paintings. Tainted by sour memories and ruined fun. Butch has each conversation practically memorized; fitting, for how staged it always feels when it happens. He'll never feel like himself when the tension snaps. He wonders if that harebrained-imagined conversation would go differently after this revelation.

There's a possibility it'd go more like this:

_How did it feel knowing a god let you touch her? Those impure hands of yours, on tender flesh_, Butch would ask. Mitch wouldn't dignify a response this time 'round, cornered like stunned deer by the savage wolf. He'd continue: _A god let you breathe the air she does, and you repay her by coughing up disease in her same breath? Is it satisfying, knowing that you are an infection, ruining everything you touch?_ There would be no contact this time. Butch would be too disgusted to near the corner Mitch backed himself into.

_It's good, to have that kind of power_, Mitch would wheeze. His eyes would glaze over with fever, runny nose and spittle on his lip. _But you'd know more than I do_, the kid would sneer, _Wouldn't you, Butch? Pathetic, letting her push and pull how she pleases; you're weak to the things she does to you_. He'd shiver, then, sickness fighting against his eyelids, and Butch would watch hazy pupils roll up reluctantly into his skull. A wet cough. Two, three, locusts from his mouth like guilt-ridden plague. Revolting.

_I'm not __**rotten**__ like you,_ is the first defense. _I'm not __**sick**__. I don't bully her, or hurt her, or push her to those kinds of limits. _Mitch would only blink. Butch feels a knot build in his stomach; acidic anxiety, hot in his chest, the hate steaming up his throat and out his mouth_._ He'd ask again: _Was it worth it? _Then he'd clarify, to save himself from prolonged exposure to the visceral wheezing and damp tongue of Mitch's next nauseous answer, _was it worth poisoning a girl to watch a god grow weak? _

Mitch has an answer this time: in the roaches scattering the floor, the festering wallpaper beginning to peel, and the distinct smell of death hitting the back of Butch's throat. _Yes_, Mitch says, because he is a sick boy, a twisted boy, but only a boy – and boys are easy to crunch under Butch's boot – _yes, it was worth it. Her heartbreak fed me like corpses feed maggots_. He's grinning, yellow teeth and sallow skin, a small spider caught in the viscosity of phlegm, _Rot is natural. I'm only –_

_Only a murderer_, Butch hisses, daring a step closer to perishing blackness, _only a stupid, psychotic fucking freak, and you drank up her heartbreak like nectar because you're desperate for power you don't have, will never have, and you were __**jealous**_ –

Mitch laughs, then. Weak and pallid, the sound reminiscent of splintering ribs and constricting lungs. _I'm the one who's jealous? What about you, huh? Wanting her for yourself; you knew she was mine, but you still pushed. Holding hands with a god, sharing secrets with a god, devoting yourself to a god __**who **__**doesn't want you**_.

Splitting glass interrupts his next rebuttal.

Butch blinks, watching the blackening walls suddenly vanish. He takes a deep breath. Mold-free and a breeze carries from the open window in the kitchen. Mitch is nowhere to be seen. The carpet is free of squirming maggots, the wallpaper is void of cockroaches writhing under it, the locusts have been plucked and banished from the air. Like nothing changed. Only Butch, and the champagne stain in the carpet.

He's broken the bottle in his hand. As he reveals to himself the angry red of his palm once again slit on glass shards (funny, how it always comes back to that,) Butch feels a heaviness sink to his core. It lingers there, not dissipating or burgeoning as he sits.

After disposing of the broken bottle, he finds himself in the familiar scene: at the sink, hand under the faucet, eyes out to the window. Contrary to last time, the sun is setting. Redeye on the city skyline, with blurry lights blinking along the length of glacial, glassy monoliths.

The water is cold. Hot blood swills down the drain. Heated with a half-slaked need for vengeance, some kind of retribution – yes, for a girl, only a girl one might protest, but she is so much more than sheepskin and gormless eyes. Buttercup is worth every drop of feral crimson that hits the metal basin. His best friend. Worth more than Mitch, more than this godforsaken hellhole, more than – anything, there is nothing for her to amount to, but she's always been bad at seeing that as a good thing. Being so high on the pedestal, with nothing to reach for above her; she is the most she can be, and it's a beautiful thing to witness. A snake leaving behind its old skin in favor of the new one. Shifting and changing constantly, as she works through the phases; Mitch being her newest skin to shed, and underneath, Butch is beginning to catch hints of the return of her vehement green. She will be stunning. There is nothing else she can be.

Butch is inexplicably lucky to have the privilege of witnessing each new phase of hers – and maybe she's more like a butterfly in that sense; cocooned, to emerge as somebody completely different. Living fast and fleeting, keenly aware of each millisecond and breath and gentle touch of her featherlight fingers on his frail, _frail_ heart. But butterflies are not dangerous the way Buttercup is. They are too delicate; they do not persevere; merely scavengers upon any sustenance. Buttercup is anything but a scavenger. She is. So much. More.

So much so that his hands fucking ache with it, with the need to hold mirrors to her visage, to hold her face in the cradle of his rough bloody _unworthy_ palms and take in every detail (just like he's done so many times before. The arch of her eyebrows, the half-lilt of her smile and the cutting edge of her jaw – sharp glass against his skin, and she'd cut him just as everything else does. He'll adore her just the same.)

As if on cue (another funny thing, another fact about Butch's life that he can't help but find repetitively staged -) Boomer comes sauntering in through the door. Humming some jaunty tune, one of the new hits of the year – _if only I had known you had a storm to weather_ – and hip-checking the door shut. Fluidly, like he fits so easily into the world. Butch still can't decide if he's jealous of that…_ease_, that _confidence_ that Boomer is a puzzle piece that fits just as everything else does. Butch doesn't know if he enjoys being a jigsaw piece from a different set, forced into the wrong picture. That's what it feels like, anyways.

"God, you and this sink, I swear to fuck," Boomer sighs. Runs a hand through his hair – many times, he does this so many times – before turning to rummage through the fridge. A breathy laugh accompanies his next quip. "It's like your New Year's resolution was to pose like some emo magazine cover every time I step into the kitchen."

To his surprise, Butch chuckles. It comes out easier than anything else today. "Well," He murmurs, "Looks like I've kept to my resolution better than _some people's_." He nods pointedly to the sugary latte in his younger brother's hand; "I thought you said you were gonna stop buying Starbucks."

Boomer's face goes through several changes. Wide-eyed, caught, and then he screws up his mouth and wriggles his eyebrows whilst he looks around the kitchen for a retort, followed quickly by the smug superiority of a cat with the cream. Half-lidded eyes and a crawling smirk. "_I_ didn't buy it." Haughtily, Boomer turns back around to peruse their (yet again) empty fridge. "Bubbles bought it for me, she's so sweet like that, always offering and helping – god, and she's so cute when she gets on her tip toes to give her card to the cashier –"

Butch tunes out after that.

He turns back to the sink basin. Reaches slowly to cut the water, palm-up as he watches his skin gradually begin to knit itself back together. It doesn't even sting. Still, there's always an aspect of body-horror to it, isn't there? Butch could be gralloched like a hunted deer, hung from his legs, knife dug from between his hips to the base of his throat – then stitch up if he didn't lose too much blood, but he'd have that image of himself in his head for the rest of his life.

Butch remembers skinning his knees as a kid. It happens. It always happens; he'd ground his kneecaps into the asphalt from how far along he skidded, and as soon as he washed the grit and other various foreign bodies, the bone had begun to regenerate. Then the ligaments, the fleshy thread of muscle and bone tissue, sprouting like spring flowers. Before his very eyes, it's like he'd never hurt himself. Like he hadn't been stupid, taken that dare, never potentially ruined his sports career – had he been somebody else, somebody who couldn't willingly leap down the skatepark's steepest ledge. Butch probably would have died had he been a normal kid.

But that's the exhilarating part, too – knowing that he _didn't_. Naming a pathway in a skatepark _Break-Neck Gulley_ means fucking nothing to a kid with no death requirement. He _didn't_ die. And _won't_, not like normal people do. Buttercup – she'd been there, too, laughing at him. Then frowning, when he couldn't get to his feet fast enough. Worrying, when it wasn't healing immediately; slower than she did, slower than any of her sisters, than his brothers. Not until they cleaned it.

Maybe that's got something important in there; of how her hands (cupping water,) had been tender on his skin. Not disgusted. Only concerned, that strange demeanor of hers when she looks at you with retracted fangs and stiff coils: how she'd asked, "You good?" Once his knees had finally closed up.

"'Course I am," He'd said. _As I'll ever be_.

"If you're sure," She'd said. _I'm here_.

Her thing is to help people, anyways, her concern and worry were strictly professional – probably. As they got older, he didn't let it go to his head. How she started touching his shoulder more, that little furrow 'tween her brows, or the firm undertone she adopted whenever he'd struck out; "You _will _come to me if you need anything, right?" And no, it wasn't a sweet gesture. Not something solely for him, though that didn't stop him from sometimes pretending that it was. That this…this gentleness, the cool slither of her scales on his arm, the loose loops around his neck – all of it for him, as if he were a priority, worth more than Mitch and Harry and the twins and her sisters, more than anybody else on her list. It helped warm his frigid nights.

That traitorous whisper still prods at him, though. _What if it wasn't pretend?_

Thankfully, Boomer interrupts him: "Oh, by the way, Brick's bringing home takeout tonight." He glances over his shoulder to see the boy already looking at him, pulling off his peacoat and smoothing wrinkles from his button-down, "I think Chinese? Or Thai? He wasn't very clear. 'Asian' doesn't exactly mean anything." There's a wry smile, as Boomer starts sauntering away, "Can you imagine him bringing home Indian? Just because neither of us like it?"

"What do you wanna bet he actually knows India is part of Asia?" Butch jokes back. It's always nice devaluing Brick's intelligence. Knocks him down a peg or two – especially after last time he brought Mexican-style takeout home, calling it _Mediterranean_. Butch doesn't even think Mediterranean is a style of eating that fast-food chains particularly prey on.

"Sounds good, though," Butch acquiesces. Boomer's agreeing hum carries through the apartment. Butch's eyes drift to the burnt stove; he frowns.

* * *

He really shouldn't be thinking about her when he's doing…_this_.

Normal people have showers at two in the morning, right? Showers hot enough that his skin's going red, the heat damn near blistering, the steam so thick that he can't breathe properly. Each inhale is sticky in his throat; it doesn't help that he's damn near panting in the dampness of the bathroom, heated from both the inside and out.

Butch presses his head to the slick tiles of the shower, hand steadying him before he can slip to the floor. He sniffs, blinking against the water cascading down his face. "Fuck," He whispers. His spare hand fumbles from his hip to the waistband of his shorts: he's past trying to hold back, now. The heat crawling up his neck isn't just from the shower. With grit teeth, Butch slips his hand into his shorts. He grips himself none too kindly. "_Fuck._"

It's normal, he figures. He's a teenage boy, jerking off is completely normal. Doing it in bed, in the shower, it doesn't really matter. Again, all natural. Nothing wrong with that. He keeps his jaw clenched, huffing through his nose. Some people even like it a little harsher than others, too, it's all dependent on the person – as long as they don't hurt themselves, there's nothing wrong with a tight grip. Completely. Normal. He chokes around a sound.

He makes a point to keep his eyes either shut, or on the wall in front of him. Shut isn't exactly the best option. When he closes his eyes, it's _her_, and you don't jerk off to the thought of your best friend. That's all she is – a best friend. A friend. Nothing in the realm of…_this_. Butch tries to think about something else. Not something that'd turn him off: he spent twenty minutes doing that before he came to drown himself in the bathroom. Originally a cold shower, but the chill had done nothing more than pull his attention to the searing hot knot furled above his pelvis. So, hot shower it was. Punishingly hot.

Despite his best efforts, the image of Buttercup brings itself to the forethoughts of his mind. Eyes closed or open, she is there. What'd make more sense is if it was something provocative – maybe the memory of her at the beach in a bikini top and a pair of shorts, perhaps the times she strolls over to him at the gym, fresh from lifting weights, in those painted-on yoga pants and the cute way she knots the hem of her tank-top – something that could be twisted into a sexual nature. None of that is what he sees – nothing with sweat, or skin-tight clothes, or nothing at all – it's just…Buttercup.

When she smiles at him during movie night, and the twins are bickering, and ol' Harry is snoring in his chair. Shoulder to shoulder on the couch, the look in her eyes telling him that she wouldn't rather be anywhere but here. The knock of their hands when they steal the popcorn bowl: sparks up his arm, followed by warmth, how Buttercup doesn't pull away in shock but only shrug in a _what can you do_ kind of fashion. Still smiling. At him. At _him_ – and that's the important part, that Mitch could've been the one, Harry could've been the one, anybody, but Butch is the one that makes her smile like that. With none of her teeth and the sweetest pink to her cheeks.

The domesticity is what gets him.

Her hands. Worn things. Dry knuckles. Rough palms. Perfect fingernails; she keeps them that way for Bubbles, who likes to paint them on occasion, usually some fitting kind of green. A darker green in the winter months (_no_, it doesn't send slews of pleasure, of satisfaction, down to his aching need. It doesn't. _It doesn't._) Buttercup's hands have always been a point of fascination, he figures. Fighter's hands. Arcing in to mean hooks and sharp knuckles that slot just between his ribs on a jab. Mean hands. Yet, so very gentle.

Butch swallows thickly. Furrowing his eyebrows, he hisses in time with his strokes, blinking water away from his eyes once more. Is it normal to hurt so much over jacking off? His chest is tight, the usual kind of stabbing pains, washed over in this filmy layer of guilt. It shouldn't be Buttercup's face behind his eyes. It shouldn't be Buttercup at all.

She's his best friend.

A best friend, who has such _nice_ hands. Gentle touches – something he's never gotten from anybody else. On his arm, shoulder, back, neck, sometimes even his own fucking hand – stirring up stupid things in his chest, all of it grotesque and red and bloody, things she'd hate him for if she knew. He squeezes tighter, movements stiff. Up. Down. Up down. A hiss whistles through his teeth.

His best. Fucking. Friend.

Buttercup's so – good. She is. They all know it. Everybody knows it. She's good at heart, not so strong in mind, but she's _good_. But Butch? Butch is fucking _filthy_. Absolute grot in comparison. The shocking thing is she still deigns to touch him, with those agile hands.

There's that time where she held his face. It was dark, in her bedroom after a late night of keeping her company as she complained about homework. Jokes shot like wayward strafes (how he'd understand if he still went to school, how she's just dumb, none of them meaning anything because it's said by _them_, not by somebody like _Mitch_.) Eventually she came to bed. Slumped onto the bed with him, propped up on her elbow to peer down at him. Then, her hand on his cheek. "Okay, but seriously. Don't you ever feel like you're wasting potential, like this?"

He didn't have an answer for her. Not one that he could say playfully, anyway. Not an answer he could give without upsetting her; but Buttercup's smart, she knows him, they wouldn't be friends if she didn't, so he has a feeling she knew what his answer would've been anyways. _I don't think I have potential for anything, sunshine_. The words never even made it from his mind. Couldn't. One, because there will never be a time in his life that he tells her that. Two, because her hand skimmed down to his throat. Laying, featherlight as a comfort, thumb soothing circles just under his jaw.

His arms had come around her waist. That'd been it. They'd gone to sleep after that.

But now? Oh, _god_. Butch chokes again, air so thick, so hot, how long has he been in here for? He works his hand faster. Forehead against his forearm. The cling of his shorts to his skin has his knees shaking, too much contact, but not enough of it. Because he is alone. With only the memory of Buttercup's hand on his throat (imagining it holding him properly, Adam's apple caught by the fit of her purlicue. Pinning him to a wall, pressure right over his windpipe -)

"_Fuuuck._"

Butch sinks to the floor. He hadn't even realized he was close; orgasm catching him off guard, hand shaking as he pulls away from his shorts. He's practically feverish, hot air and hot water and hot skin, insides on fire from the tips of his toes. His breaths come out in shuddering gasps, discomfort quickly settling in.

Wet cotton. Oversensitivity at a striking high, dizziness pulsing behind his eyes. With effort, Butch gets back to his feet and turns the shower off. He's wheezing. Trembling hands. Weak all the way through, limbs deadening the longer he stares at the slick tiles of the wall. Only an automaton, Butch peels off his sticky shorts and dumps them in the hamper. He clumsily wipes condensation from the mirror: a mess stares back at him.

Bloodshot eyes. Overly red. Hair matted to his forehead. Clumped eyelashes – god, he looks like he's been crying. With a grimace and laboring breaths, Butch opens the bathroom door. Steam rolls out into the hall after him.

He just came to the thought of his best friend choking him.

Butch lurches back for the toilet, slamming the lid up just in time to heave. He's sick. So fucking sick.

_Disgusting_.

* * *

Butch wakes up sweaty, naked, and not alone. He rubs his eyes, a pathetic noise murmuring from his throat. Nothing immediately strikes him as off; the blinds are drawn, empty beer cans still on the floor, half-smoked joint in the ashtray. Maybe a draft.

As soon as he props up on his elbow, he freezes. He's naked. There is a girl in his room. A specific girl, a girl he'd die for – and currently he'll die in matters of embarrassment, because she's probably the one who put his comforter over him in the first place, meaning she's seen his dick, his shlong, his no-no-zone – this is a _travesty_.

Buttercup looks up from her textbook, smiling at him tentatively. "Hey stranger," Her voice is soft on his ears. It's then that Butch realizes nothing sounds clear; muffled, like cotton. He massages his temple slightly, unable to think of a response fast enough. He returns the smile. His heart pulls and pushes oddly in his chest.

She's made herself at home, at least. It'd be strange if she didn't at this point. Her nest consists of clothes he's left on the floor, a stolen pillow, and her backpack. There seems to be some kind of drink at her side, the homework in her lap looking like calculus or trigonometry. Not that Butch would know. He's a pathetic drop out, remember? He bites the inside of his cheek at the reminder, leaning forward in an attempt to actually understand just _what_ she's supposed to do with the numbers and letters.

"How you feeling?" Buttercup asks. She moves her textbook aside, shuffling on her knees towards him. Butch hurriedly pulls the comforter up further to his chest, blinking the last of sleep away. His company just snorts at him, "Please, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen." Punctuated by a corny wink, Buttercup lifts her hand to press against his forehead.

Meanwhile, Butch smirks at the pseudo-compliment.

He closes his eyes to the girl's touch, amusement falling wayside to the uncomfortable heat flustering under his skin. His stomach feels restless, now that he's taking inventory; headache, dry mouth, tight throat, upset stomach. "…You're supposed to be at school," He discerns dimly. His hand bumps his nose on the way to curl around Buttercup's slender wrist. She's cool to the touch. There's no intent to pull her hand away – in fact, quite the opposite, her smoothed-over calloused palm like a balm against the tightness of his skin – Butch sighing at the vague relief.

Buttercup is quiet for a moment. She brushes his hair from his forehead, something undecipherable in her gaze. "Not when you need me," She imparts, "You're sick, and your brothers don't know what to do with you. So here I am."

Butch blinks slowly, trying to think beyond how her lips shaped that inauspicious truth – _you need me you need me you need me_ – struggling, beyond all hope, how she can skip over those words with as much ease as she did, like they're nothing, like it's not the sole center of his being: he can't come to a conclusion. Just the deceitful pink of her mouth, on that truth over and over again; teeth, sliver of tongue, shaped with the delicate plush of two pretty lips that Butch will never know the taste of. Only the touch – and not even to his own mouth, he thinks, as she leans to press a quick peck to his temple.

He can't conjure a proper retort. Something to drag them from the rocky bottom of this treacherous creek, something like, _only as much as you need me _(you see, because she doesn't need Butch at all,) or maybe a joke along the lines of _I'd be dead by now_. Nothing. His mouth is too dry. He's struck dumb by Buttercup's hand, like always. His own grip slackens.

"Thanks, sunshine."

"No problem, big guy."

The fact that he could spend the rest of his days like this makes his stomach churn irritably. Or maybe that's just the nausea. Sighing, Butch tosses onto his side, scooting back until there's enough room for Buttercup to fold her arms on the edge of the mattress.

Being naked in front of her isn't as embarrassing as he'd previously thought – mostly because of her lack of concern for it, and the comforter tucked around him. It is getting hot, though. "You sure this is a good idea?" Butch muffles against the pillow, "You've…already missed a lot. Of school."

Only arching an eyebrow, his companion shuffles a little closer into his space (her breath smells like mint.) "Since when did you care about that?" At Butch's lack of answer Buttercup just closes her eyes and lays her cheek against her forearms, seeming content to simply curl up right there. Like she wants to be here. Rather than some moral obligation. It makes something in his chest flutter – though that's probably the sickness too. "I want to be here." Butch's throat closes up. "I like spending time with you, man, is that so hard to believe? School doesn't mean much to me anyway." (A lie; it means a lot, every B or D or F a chink in her armor and another failure taken to heart. Butch keeps his mouth shut.)

"Okay," Butch suffers. He reclines fully against his pillow. A heat makes his skin feel suctioned to his body, ripe grape kind of tautness, and if anything, he's vulnerable enough to be a snake's meal right now. She's practically eating him up; eyes roaming from his sweat-slicked hair to the flush reaching down to his shoulders. He must be a pitiful sight.

Buttercup's hand slips from his face slowly, palm gathering heated sweat at it goes along – god, he's fucking revolting – smiling all the while. She wrinkles her nose playfully, wiping her hand on his bedsheets. Her smile falls quickly when she meets his eyes again. What is it about him that makes her so distraught? His chest collapses in on itself ever so slightly, suffocating loss, as the girl stands and makes steps away from the bed. So she's finally realized the futility of his company?

"I'm gonna get you an ice pack. Maybe an ice bath, to bring your temperature down. Okay, big guy?"

Butch can't bring himself to open his mouth. His tongue is stuck to his teeth. Moving feels like a herculean task – to talk, let alone to follow. The longer he watches her reluctantly retreating form, the heavier his eyelids feel. Weighed down by illness. "Mmnh," He manages.

Then his eyes shut.

He opens them again to the slap of a wet towel being pressed against his forehead. Butch squints at the garish overhead lightbulb. The buzzing of it reverberates in his skull, maybe an outcry, or just a dramatization.

One blink reveals the bathroom. Fuzzy around the edges, with the porcelain rim of the tub confining him to a coffin-stance. Soft clinking echoes in the room. Sloshing. He frowns, bringing a (wet?) hand to rub his eyes. Startled, Butch pushes himself to sit up in the tub. He stares down at the ice cubes floating around in the water, unsure what he's supposed to be doing here. He brings a hand to keep the wet towel to his head, glancing over to find Brick watching him wearily from the doorway.

Butch glances down – relieved to find he is, in fact, wearing a pair of shorts this time. "Who -?" He clears his throat, but Brick sighs before he can continue.

"I did," The boy informs, "Your _sunshine_'s had to respond to an emergency, so you're stuck with me 'til she comes back." Pure, unadulterated joy shines in the straight grimace on Brick's face, a particular kind of concern brimming the deadened look in Brick's eyes. Note the sarcasm. Butch shuffles awkwardly in the ice bath, prodding ice cubes that bob along in the sloshing of the cold water.

"…Sorry, Red."

"Don't be."

Butch turns back to the tub, tracing water droplets along the rim. He squeezes the hand-towel against his face, eyelids fluttering against the water that trickles down. "…Did she say what the emergency was?" Butch asks quietly. He keeps his head down. Brick's probably too pissy to be talked to face-value right now.

Brick is quiet for a second. It's what makes Butch look up, despite his reluctance, watching the rarely-caught indecision on his brother's face. Furrowed eyebrows. Stern frown. Eyes to the floor. Two hot embers as they snap back up to Butch's gaze: "No." It's a simple enough answer. Butch still waits for an elaboration. One he apparently won't be getting if Brick's crossed arms is any indication. Figures.

Butch frowns, twisting until he can cross his arms on the rim of the tub. He shivers. "When can I get out?" Butch gestures to the half-melted ice water, the knocking of ice cubes on porcelain all too loud in the silence. Brick watches him, blasé, before checking his phone for the time. Apparently enough time has passed since Butch has been in here, because Brick beckons his head in lieu of an actual response; the older boy holds out a bath towel, which Butch grabs gratefully as he wobbles his way out of the tub.

The second he's upright, the world spins. And spins. And spins. Much alike to his stomach, of which surges up his gullet and into his mouth before he can blink. Brick manages to curb him just in time to reach the toilet bowl.

He can't help but feel like he's compensating for something.

Once recovered, Butch finds himself back in bed. Propped up on too many pillows. Breath sticky in his throat. Brick lingers in the doorway, similar to how he had done in the bathroom; aloof, confrontational in a sense Butch is too unfocused to pinpoint, vague inkling of worry in the inclination of his head. The boy shifts tentatively on the spot; his expression softens, "…How you feeling?"

Maybe it's a touching moment between estranged brothers. Hot fire meets dry earth. Bushfires arise in diffident devotion to each other, on the horns of a dilemma – but Brick's good like that, determined, still willing to grab those same horns and push through. It's meant to be a comforting notion. _How you feeling? _A question Butch should be able to answer with some sweet sincerity, something like, _Better, knowing you're lookin' after me, Red_. But Butch doesn't say that. Brick isn't expecting him to say something like that. It'd be too much. Just like everything else is too much.

It's not a touching moment between torn-apart family, because Brick doesn't care to that depth and Butch knows better than to trick himself into thinking he did. So when Brick frowns at Butch's, "M'fine, Red," it's out of irritation, not inner turmoil. The day Brick tears himself up over his brothers is the day Butch – well. Probably the day Butch dies.

Buttercup hopping through the window saves the scene. She's nimble, sinuous as she slithers her way into the room; wind-cut cheeks and bright eyes, hair more tossed than it'd been before she left. The focus of her gaze makes Butch squirm a little on the bed.

At least he's not naked this time.

Brick and Buttercup – they nod, apparently having some silent communication system, and no, Butch's stomach doesn't roil at the thought – and then Brick is leaving the room, Buttercup stalking towards him in amply-spaced steps. "Hey big guy," She greets with that honey-over-gravel voice, breathless. Butch smiles. It doesn't feel right on his face.

Buttercup takes a seat next to him on the bed. He allows her this minute to catch her breath. Notes of sweat hit his nose; dark smoke, motor oil – possibly some event down closer to the main artery of Townsville, a car explosion or some kind of mechanic menace that called for a hero's helping hand. She has the redness of a quick-healed cut on her jaw: he wants to touch it. He wonders if she would push him away if he tried. He doesn't risk it.

It's distinctly a boy and a snake scenario: she's slinked into his backyard through a gap in the fence, sun glistening on her scales, guileless as she explores the overgrown grass; he's the boy watching raptly, huddled up on the steps of the porch as the snake comes to curl up at his feet. The temptation to touch is all too enticing. His fingers itch (for scales or skin, it's unclear, all of it deceptively soft,) but he keeps his hands firmly in his lap. There is a threat in the bright of her coloring. The venomous things are always the prettiest. He knows this. Knows the warning. Has seen it time and time again, as she coils within his reach, and yet, each visit makes the want to touch more unbearable each time.

Just a touch, he figures.

Buttercup smiles when he curls an arm across her belly. Solid, but with give. Butch swallows his heart down hastily, mushing his face into the pillow in hopes she'd fall for his pretense of feverish want for comfort. Her slight laugh makes her stomach tense under his arm – the reminder of her lightly muscled core making him bite his tongue – as her hand comes to curl through his hair.

Friends do this, right?

"You seem…better. Ice bath cool you down, big guy?" Her voice is ten tones too tender; for this instant, where the sun flows through the blinds and the faraway ambience of wind in trees, anything beyond Butch's bedroom existing as nothing more than a thought. It is just them. In motion. Her hand against his forehead, attentive gaze searching for something Butch doesn't know how to give, her hair loose from behind her ear as it falls into her eyes. Cutting off the reaches of golden sunlight in her irises. "Yeah," She murmurs to herself, "You've definitely fought that fever down. Good job, Butch."

The praise is a little unnecessary. Wholly unnecessary. He's done nothing to battle the bile in his throat, or anything to improve his situation: it's all been her. The praise is inappropriate. He can't help himself preening, despite the futility of the tribute she's paying to him. It's good, hearing that from somebody he admires. How good he is. What a good job he's done. His worth being validated; lionized in the eyes of a lionhearted, snake-skinned goddess.

Loving divinity has always been the bane of mortals.

He has nothing to offer for conversation, content to hold onto her for as long as she'll let him. There's a dewiness to her as she basks in the sunshine of his otherwise dark room. Pink slip of her tongue over lip, beguiling contortion of her slim figure as she wriggles her way down the bed to lay on the same pillow. Close enough that her hair brushes his cheek. He can tell she'd chewed mint gum on the way here, she's that close, he can see each freckle on her face and every eyelash as they spider across her cheeks and the purpling under her eyes from too many nights without sleep and. She's beautiful. And not his.

That's the key. The number one thing to remember. The mantra to his waking moments. _Not his not his not his_. It's an easy enough maxim. The energy exerted is a shocking fee, however, exhausted from having to restrain himself from the simplest things: no more-than-friends touching (failed,) no more-than-friends compliments (failed,) no more-than-friends smiles, looks, secrets, admiring sighs, heart-heavy dreams of just getting to chastely kiss her forehead at the most (failed.) Killing him slowly, softly, secretly. That's okay, Butch figures, that's – that's fine. He kills himself via other bad habits, this love will only be another to add to the list.

Yes, love. Because it is a love. He can't really deny it anymore. (Possibly an obsession; from waking to sleeping, a constant reel chuntering in his head of the same thoughts. Isn't that what drives people to insanity?) A fitting end for a degenerate like Butch.

The bodily movement of being pulled and resituated pulls butch from his downward spiral of self-loathing. Buttercup's cradling the back of his neck, petting him down before he can raise hackles – his entire being moved closer, head on her chest, heartbeat strong and steady against his ear like a drum. His own heart sputters in his chest. That same breathy laughter against his hair, before she snorts, "You're not gonna be weird about this, are you? You started it."

Butch knows what she really means is _you're not gonna belittle me for needing comfort too, right?_ And it's something he'd never dream of doing. So he stays quiet. Curls more into his best friend's warmth. Pretends this isn't too much, not enough, exhausting to keep from doing _more_. He hopes he's not visibly affronted by the dilemma. He hopes his heart isn't too hard against her. He hopes he hasn't made her uncomfortable in his neediness. His want for what he can't have. Butch knows he'd be fucking disgusted, had he been in her position.

He swallows down nerves. "Nah," Is his croaky assurance, "You're comfy. Can't pass that up." Her hand stays in his hair, palm fitted to his atlas vertebrae: a firm pressure that explodes all kinds of endorphins in his bloodstream. Butch dares pull her a little bit closer.

"Wouldn't pass this up for anything, sunshine." Another too-tender tidbit that will never leave this room.

* * *

It's about a week later since his self-induced heat sickness, and she's cornering him in his booth at their local burger-joint. Familiarity in the scene had caused his guard to be lowered. Late-afternoon, a Friday after school (for Buttercup,) and his usual order of cola, double cheese burger, side of salad sits in front of him. Discarded. Hardly the center of his attention.

No, Buttercup is the holder of his cynosure. She's sat on the same side as him, cutting chances of admiring her without seeming suspicious, leisurely sipping her drink as she lounges. "Have you ever thought of seeing a psychiatrist?"

Whilst it's not the first time that this line of conversation has arisen, Butch is disgruntled all the same. "No?" He bites defensively. He picks at his burger. "Ain't nothing wrong with me." He can't keep the heat from rising up his neck when his companion pins him with a dubious look.

Buttercup gently rests her cup back on the table, turning in her seat to look at him fully. Elbow resting on the backrest, leg propped up between them. Butch feels oddly vulnerable; she looks ready to strike. "No?" She parrots, eyebrow arching – stern has always fit her a little jarringly; an expression for a woman much older than herself, but she's had a sister to teach her to grow into the cutting lines of her face – the scowl is scathing. "You really wanna sit there and say you're perfectly okay?"

Butch glances away.

Her glower falls into a warmer kind of concern. She sighs: "Butch, I just…want you to be okay. You're my –" She gestures between them, a lilted kind of fluttery sound creaking from her mouth, like it's a sound she's not used to making, a sound too delicate for her to produce – "_y'know_." Apparently, he doesn't know. If he's not her best friend, then what is he? Something less? Something _more?_ (He cuts that hopeful thinking short. No point in gagging himself with that particular noose.)

"You don't need to…do this to yourself, y'know that right?" There's no helping himself when she rests a hand on his arm; he rests his hand on top of hers, still too much of a little bitch to look her in the eye. He keeps his gaze trained dutifully to his uneaten meal.

"Do what?" He entreats, voice climbing in octave incredulously, "I'm not – I'm fine, sunshine, you make it sound like I'm going to kill myself –"

"Are you?"

The question stuns him silent. Well – more so the dire demand of it, the desperate urgency springing to life in green and gold and sunset-washed shimmer that had been absent not five minutes ago. It startles him. His breath knocks in the back of his throat. "N-No," He wheezes.

"No," He says more pressingly. "I – not ever. There's too much shit here, I. I couldn't do that." _To you_, he thinks miserably, _I couldn't do that to you_. He may not think much of himself, but Butch has always prided himself on knowing his worth to others; he's her rock, he can't leave her behind by herself. Not like that. He'll rot as a husk before that happens. Or, maybe once she figures out she doesn't need him… Butch clears his throat.

He takes both her hands – slender and shockingly like fragile marble in his hold – and squeezes them. The fear in her eyes is a hit to his gut each time she blinks. "Sunshine – Buttercup. Believe me," He pleads. Pulls her closer. Until her eyes flutter closed to the touch of their foreheads, and suddenly suicide seems like such a stupid solution, had it been in his thoughts at all, it'd be abolished. (The kicker is that Butch can't say confidently that it hadn't been in his deck of cards. He wanders with only knowledge of half his deck a majority of the time. Who knows if he'd shuffle and find that particular ace staring back up at him?)

Buttercup holds his hand for the duration of their silence, and then longer, as she divulges, "You've been…_off_, for a while now, Butch. I'm – we're – me and Harry, and your brothers, we've getting worried. We just want the best for you, y'know? I'm gonna be fucking shocked if it turns out you really, _genuinely_, have no idea what I'm talking about." Her eyes ensnare him.

Looks like he's caught.

He slumps against the seat. Old leather creaks and crinkles under his weight, his knees bumping into the opposite booth as he slides down. "It…ain't that easy, sunshine." It's a weak admission even to his own ears. Barely touching the tip of the proverbial iceberg. He curls his spare hand into his hair, tugging irritably. His knee starts bouncing. The thought of taking her other hand from his hold makes a sickness shudder up his spine. "It's just…" _You_, he wants to say, _I think you're the one making me sick like this_, but how do you tell your best friend that you're driving yourself up the wall with each breath held when she gets too close, slowly suffocating in any kind of proximity, quietly going fucking insane?

Reasonably, Butch knows it's not just Buttercup making him like this. This – _sick_. This _vile_. Wrong. He's just…like this, he figures. It's not exactly something that can be fixed, or righted, or prescribed any kind of medication. At least, that's the outlook he's had for the past couple years. It's not normal to eat yourself from the inside out, no, but it's _his_ normality; he's learned how to survive with this voracity inside him. Mostly. Sort of. Not quite, but he's getting there.

Buttercup's patient silence is making it hard to sit still. His heart stutters a little. A sigh comes out shakily. She squeezes his hand. "I –" Butch snaps his mouth shut again. Heat crawls up his neck again, to the tips of his ears. Unbearably hot. "I just…don't want to…it's not something – to lose sleep over, sunshine. Okay? I'm ok – I'm better off than you think I am." _Please believe me._

She doesn't believe him.

She looks around, a redness to her sclera that has his stomach churning knots, before sighing. The crowded diner seems to have her rethinking her argument. Her grip on his hand is an iron vice. "We're not just gonna brush this under the rug, Butch." It's relenting enough that he sighs again, this time in relief. Her hold palliates to something gentler, more of a caress than a strangling intensity. Butch nods.

Temporarily abated, Buttercup settles enough to eat the rest of her meal one-handed. Butch can't decide the root-cause for the butterflies in his gut.

"I know," He consoles, "I know. Just…not now. Please?"

_If not now, then when? _Is strikingly clear on her face; she does well to keep her mouth shut, looking back down at her straw, "Not now, big guy."

'When' appears to be later the same evening. She calls him whilst he's wallowing in his room, dark and alone. It starts generally enough; how she is, how he is, plans for tomorrow to see each other. Then she asks, "Now?" And the tightness in her voice has him unable to deny her.

"Yeah. Now."

Therapy or psychiatry had never even been in his deck of cards. He has all of them splayed out in his mind's eye – they range from _kill kill kill _to _hate hate hate _to _break break break _and not a single one has the face of a professional on it. But then there's Buttercup, across the table from him. Volatile as she is, snaking her own card face-down for him to turn over; completely upturning all his cards, and she wins the game. Butch doesn't even really know what game they were playing. Just that he was losing. Poorly. "We could – I dunno, I can probably…if you're okay with me talking to the Professor, we can probably get you an appointment with a specialist," She offers – nervous tremor betraying her nonchalance, but he doesn't comment.

He feels cold. Life no longer in his own hands. But who better to handle it than Buttercup? It seems she was the one holding it all this time anyways. "Sounds good, sunshine," He whispers. Any louder and she'll know he's trying not to cry.

_Pathetic_.

She falls quiet, simply breathing. He tries to follow the pattern. Her presence, her patience, it's all a little too much, encroaching this overload of too many feelings to handle, but he tampers it down. Chokes it.

"It's –" He stops.

"It's what?"

Butch takes his time chewing the words over. "It's a lot – so much – that you're doin' for me." Because it is, it's not every day you steel yourself to make an appointment for somebody as inept as Butch, who can't seemingly fucking tie his shoelaces without crying about it, and he doesn't know how to say thank you without his heart welling up in his throat. "I…" Deep breath. "Look, thanks. Okay? For stickin' with me. Even in this."

It's too much too much too much – he's done it, he's fucked it up, _this is it_. It was a good life. It was – but this is looking like the end of the line, Butchie-boy, say your prayers before she puts you in the dirt.

Her voice is a subtle breeze: "It's nothing, big guy. Anything for a –" The hesitation confuses him – "Anything for a friend, right?"

"…Yeah." His thumb hovers over the button to end the call. "Listen, sunshine, I – Red needs me for something, I'll catch up later, got it? Call me when…when you've got that appointment set up. I'll jot it on my calendar." Fodder and lies, but she eats it up.

"Sure!" She chirps falsely, "Yeah, I. You see what that fuckhead wants. I love you, big guy. Stay safe."

She hangs up before he does. Butch gapes gormlessly at his black phone screen, his reflection looking as dumbfounded as he feels. He drops his hand onto his chest. Blinking through the system-shock, he tries for a few breaths.

_I love you, big guy. Stay safe._

_I love you, big guy._

_I love you_.

Fuck.


End file.
